Hybrid Backup and Disaster Recovery Architecture Spanning On-Premises VMware and Cloud

A reference architecture for organizations running VMware on-premises who need cloud-based disaster recovery without a full cloud migration.

Replication approach

Azure Site Recovery replicates VMware VMs continuously to Azure, maintaining crash-consistent and application-consistent recovery points without requiring changes to the on-premises hypervisor environment.

Network failover design

A pre-configured Azure VNet mirrors the on-premises network segmentation, with DNS and routing changes automated as part of the failover runbook so applications resolve correctly post-failover without manual reconfiguration.

Testing without disrupting production

Azure Site Recovery’s test failover capability spins up an isolated copy of the recovered environment for validation, which is what makes realistic quarterly DR testing operationally feasible without an actual production failover.